The Siege of Yorktown ended with the British surrender on October 19, 1781, a decisive Revolution milestone before America250.
American and French forces surrounded the British army commanded by Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. George Washington led the Continental Army, while French troops under Rochambeau and French naval forces under de Grasse were essential to the victory.
Cornwallis requested capitulation terms on October 17 after allied artillery had weakened the British defenses. Negotiations followed, and the surrender ceremony took place two days later. Cornwallis did not attend, citing illness; Charles O’Hara represented him and formally surrendered to American major general Benjamin Lincoln.
Yorktown was the final major land engagement of the American Revolutionary War, but fighting and negotiations continued afterward. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the war and recognized American independence, a separate milestone from the Yorktown surrender itself.